Durban - Thousands of residents of Soul City in Newcastle are due benefit from a multimillion-rand housing project.
The initiative by the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Human Settlement is aimed at housing informal residents in Ward 31 in Newcastle Local Municipality.
The project will formalise the densely populated Soul City informal settlement with about 2000 units to be delivered upon the completion of construction.
In 2020, the department approved R2,7 million to acquire the land of privately owned properties to enable the development of the other phases of the project.
Almost 80 hectares of land have since been bought for housing development.
The project was officially launched on Saturday and was expected to boost the economy of the region by providing more than 1000 employment opportunities to local people.
Construction material, worth more than R50 million, will be bought from local suppliers.
Speaking at the launch, KZN Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube expressed her appreciation for the project.
“We are very humbled here because the people of this area live in informal settlements.
The government took the decision to acquire land. It was tricky because the land was privately owned and for a long time the government has not been able to build houses for people because the land is privately owned, so we were able to negotiate with a number of owners and landlords to sell the land to us and now we have been able to get it with 2000 sites where the houses will be built which is called Soul City,” she said.
Dube-Ncube said that they aimed to upskill the local residents as well.
“We have spoken to Corobrick and agreed that they would help people and show them how the bricks are built. As we are building houses, our aim is to buy directly from the people who make these bricks. We aim to use quality materials.
She called on the community members to play a role.
“Since we are here, there are other areas that belong to chiefs and we will be building there too and when we do, what we ask for from our communities is for us to join hands and work together in creating job opportunities.
“It cannot be that more than 6500 houses be built without a single local constructor present during the process. We have trained young people such as Civil Engineers to join us and make their own contributions so that they go and create their own projects,” she said.
“We are going to be starting the second registration of all the beneficiaries because before we build, a house must have the number and the name of the person. That is why I announced that there are people whom we want to be in their own homes by Christmas. That is the commitment I have made,” said Dube-Ncube.
She further appealed to the community members not to sell or rent out their houses to foreign nationals as they were built for them and not for renting out. She also called on them to communicate in the instance of wanting seed funding for business opportunities or employment and to keep opportunities for the locals.
SUNDAY TRIBUNE